cmene are just names. People's names, places's names. These are necessary in every language.

brivla are function words. They are functions like programing languages, as in do_something(arg1, arg2, arg3, …). Each function word has a associated definition. For example, “i run home” would be like “run(I, home)”. “I want to eat bread” would be something like “want(I, abstract(eat(none, bread)))”. All lojban sentences are composed of functions like that.

Since lojban is not a programing language, it does not actualy use commas and parenthesis or nesting as in printed code. These are not suitable for verbal communication. Instead, lojban has many little words that functions like these technical punctuations to connect lojban sentence into a logical structure. These little words are called “cmavo”. In natural languages, it is like words like “and, or, at, with, of, by, to, hereby, for, too …”. Their purpose is to connect words in various ways to make meanful sentences. Lojban has about a hundred cmavos of many different types for different purposes.

Some are logical connectives like programing language's “and, or…” that are meaningful to the content of a sentence. Some are word or sentence connectors such as English's “and …; but …”. Some acts like parenthesis to demarcate lojban's language structure. Some acts like attitude indications such as English's “ah, god, ha, hey, bah!…”… there are many types of these cmavos in lojban.

Cmene always end with a consonant followed by a mandatory pause (a period). No other Lojban word ends with a consonant. Thus names are easily recognized by its form. Name must also start with a consonant. Here are some examples of cmene: “.alis.” (Alice), “teris.” (Teris game), “djan.” (John), “romas.” (Rome), “beidjin.” (Beijing).

In this example, “klama” is the main brivla (briva = functional word). The definition of a brivla has the form “x1 briva_name x2 x3 …” corresponding to a functional notation like “briva_name(x1, x2, x3, …)”. For example, “klama” means come/go, and its definition is given as:

So, if i say “I klama your house my house my car”, it would mean “I go to your house from my house by my car” or more naturally “I drive my car from my house to your house”, and in functional notation it would be “klama(I, your house, my house, my car)”. The “I, your house, my house, my car” are the parameters. The actual words/sentences used to fill in the parameters are called arguments, or parameter values. Arguments is called “sumti” in lojban.

Remember that all lojban words (except names (cmene) and grammar words (cmavo)) are defined as function and its parameters. The definition gives meaning to the function word, and meaning for its parameters, and how the function word relates to the parameters, and all lojban sentences have the structure “x1 function_word x2, x3, …” where any of the parameters is a word or other sentences.

It would be clear if we simply write in a functional notation “f(x1,x2,x3)”. However, this writing system is not suitable as a human language. For example, when speaking it, one would say “f left parenthesis x1 x2 x3 right parenthesis” makes it very difficult to interpret. For example, if the sentence is complex, such as “f(f2(y1,y2),x2,g(h1,h2,h3))”, it becomes impossible to understand it by ear and interprete the levels of nesting, even though it is very clear visually.

For this reason, lojban does not really use parenthesis or similar markers as part of its language. Instead, it takes the form of “x1 f x2 x3 x4 …”. And certain other ways becomes necessary to mark the beginning or ending of arguments. For example, note the word “cu” in the above klama example. “cu” is a cmavo in lojban to indicate that it is the end of the first argument.

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some clarification between confusing terms of brivla, selbri, bridi:

A Lojban sentence expresses a relationship (bridi), normally claiming that the relationship holds (that it is 'true'). A bridi relationship consists of several ideas or objects called arguments (sumti), which are related by a predicate relation (selbri). The following uses the Lojban terms bridi, sumti, and selbri, because it is best to come to understand them independent of the English associations of the corresponding words.

The simplest form of selbri is an individual word. A word which may by itself express a selbri relation is called a brivla. The three types of brivla are gismu (root words), lujvo (compounds), and fu'ivla (borrowings from other languages). All have identical grammar; they are allowed wherever "selbri" appear in these examples.

Some short words may serve as selbri, acting as variables that stand for another selbri. The most commonly used of these is go'i, which represents the main bridi of the previous Lojban sentence, with any new sumti or other sentence features being expressed replacing the previously expressed ones.

• cu | separator between sumti and selbri. Used before the selbri.
• vau | indicate that no more sumti follows. Place near the end.
• zo'e | place holder for a unspecified sumti. (used when a sumti is unimportant or obvious)

Asking Questions

• xu | true/false clause. Placed after a sumti or selbri to question the true/false of it. Place in the beginning to question the whole bridi. Note: vau must be used if xu is placed at the end of a sentence.

todo See file:///Users/t/na_vajni/skami/bangu/lojban/lojban.level0.html.utf%20Folder/diagsumm.html#sent

negations

• ja'a | the opposite of na. | mi na klama ti ta .i mi ja'a go'i (it's false that i go to this from that, it is true that i do (go to this from that))

na deals primarily with the truth or falsity of a bridi. Lojban also supports a separate form of negation, called contrary or scalar negation. A scalar negation attaches tightly to the next brivla of the selbri, modifying the meaning of the word on some scale. Scalar negation structures may appear anywhere where a brivla or selbri is allowed. Scalar negation words include na'e (other-than), to'e (absolute opposite-of), and no'e (neutral on the scale); je'a is a strong positive scale assertion, translating roughly as 'certainly' or "indeed":

What nu does here is allow us to put a whole bridi into a selbri place, and by extension (if we put an article in front of it) a sumti place. | Example: "mi klama" is a bridi. "nu mi klama" is selbri. "le nu mi klama [ku]" is a sumti.

• ni | amount
• ka | quality; property

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• go'i

Some short words may serve as selbri, acting as variables that stand for another selbri. The most commonly used of these is go'i, which represents the main bridi of the previous Lojban sentence, with any new sumti or other sentence features being expressed replacing the previously expressed ones. Thus: